Meet Me on Pandora
by TheRedPenofDoom87
Summary: Some loves last a life-time. Some are life altering. Some go across light-years. And some are exactly where you thought you'd find them. A Norm/OC series of one-shots celebrating nerd love.
1. Meet Me on Pandora

_Hey all, _

_Apparently, I'm on a serious one-shot kick. All though, this whole thing is supposed to be a series of one-shots, this will be a string of 3-4 more vignettes, i guess. They'll go chronilogically in order of the movie and they're in the same canon as "Old Coyote" and "Antartica". Actually, if you wanted to you, you could insert these one-shots with Grace's, This one, then "Antartica" then the next chapter/one-shot of this then "Old Coyote" but I digress..._

_So, since I wrote "Antartica"...something about Norm and Amanda caught my attention. And then Norm kept telling me to tell their story...yeah, these characters have taken over my brain,_

_Anyway, Amanda is my own OC, if you haven't figured it out yet and she's the only character I claim. Everything else belongs to James Cameron. _

_Enjoy!_

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**_"The course of true love never did run smooth."~William Shakespeare_**

**_"I don't quite know/How to say/How I feel/Those three words/Are said too much/They're not enough…"~ Snow Patrol "Chasing Cars"_**

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I liked logic. I did. I ordered my world around it. There was order to everything and a reason behind it. Being practical was a matter-of-course and everything else fit: if I couldn't see it, touch it, or hear it, it wasn't real, at least to me.

All the things people found mysterious and incomprehensible all had explanations: Love was simply chemical attraction between two people's brains, faith only had power if you believed in it, fate was just a crutch that people needed. Hope…Well, I hoped for things. I hoped to get that early acceptance into Yale, I hoped for a future job on Pandora. I hoped for small things, things I could achieve. But did I hope big? No.

That is until, like all the great stories, I met a girl….

It was the second day of my freshman year at Yale; I spent most of the day before getting totally lost, losing my keys but was actually feeling pretty good at that point. I'd found my first Xeno-biology class with little trouble and still had my keys.

There was a flash of blue jeans and a dark green t-shirt as she settled next to me in the semi-dark lecture hall. She opened her backpack and pulled out a notebook, pens and a highlighter. As she returned to the sitting position, she pushed a long dark curly strand out of her eyes and then seemed to notice that she had chosen a seat next to me.

"Hi," she extended her hand to me. "I'm Amanda. Amanda Fuller."

All I could think was: why is she talking to me? There had to be three hundred people in this class, why me? Granted, I'd just spent the last four years being roundly ignored by my peers; male and female alike. Still I just couldn't fathom it.

"Do you have a name?" she prodded, a half and unsure smile on her lips, which naturally curved upward.

Stupid Norm! I cursed as I took her offered hand. "Yeah, sorry. I'm Norm. Spellman. Are you a Xeno-Biology major too?" Yes! Points for making conversation.

She shook her head. "No, I'm Xeno-Ecology."

I knew that hunger in her voice. "You want to go to Pandora, don't you?"

She nodded, a light flush erupting under her freckles.

"Me too,"

Dr. Shepard took to the podium then and we stopped talking. For the moment at least.

We were friends after that, Amanda and I. We stuck together though the rest of our time together at Yale. We were study buddies; especially when our subjects overlapped, which they did quite often. She called me "Biology" and I called her "Ecology". People thought we were nuts and we were. I'd never met someone who had the same passion for school, for learning as I had in Amanda. She was bright, focused, and resourceful but quietly confident. There was always a kind word, and a playfulness that she didn't seem to have with anyone else.

And stupidly, I fell for her.

No, fell was the wrong word, I realized. I'd always heard the phrase: to fall in love but that didn't describe what I felt for Amanda. I didn't feel like I had stepped off a cliff or jumped out of a plane. It was more like grounding. Like everything had settled into place and there wasn't anything else to guess or wonder about. It crept up on me slowly but hit me all at once, like a stealthy thanator.

It didn't make sense…Biologically, she only had a few of the traits that would attract the opposite sex but they weren't in the extreme. Amanda had long curly almost black hair that had a mind all its own. She had these cat eye glasses that framed her almond shaped chocolate brown eyes. They weren't just brown, but brown around the edges with flecks of gold around her iris. And something about the combination of all these traits; the physical and the personality, made her irresistible to me.

That and her eyes. Those eyes didn't miss anything and I think they're what did me in.

To this day, I don't really know what it was that made me realize how much I had grounded myself for her. I remember when I realized it though; we were studying for spring finals of that freshman year. It must have been…one or two in the morning and Amanda suddenly just put her head down on the table.

"Wake me up in ten minutes." She announced as she took her glasses off and laid them next to her elbow. "Just ten." She wacked the stack of books next to her. "Then I gotta get through most of these."

I promised that I would. But as I sat there, watching her sleep, I forgot all about school and the grades riding on these tests. I had one of those epiphanies that you hear that everyone has: I knew there was no other place I ever wanted to be. If Amanda was next to me, there wasn't anything else I could want. She may not have felt the same, or even knew that I'd become aware of this but I didn't care, I was next to her and that was all that mattered.

I never told her; I tried a couple of times, but couldn't. I could ruin everything if I opened my mouth and said those words. I decided that if I ignored them hard enough, these feelings would just disappear. Besides, if I told her, things would be weird if she didn't feel the same way and I still wanted her as a friend. She was my friend first.

So, I kept my mouth shut through sophomore, junior and senior year as we struggled through undergrad, through our introduction to one of the oldest legal stimulants: coffee, through the hazards of college dating (mainly hers, though I did my share) but we kept our eyes constantly on the prize: getting into the ATP (Avatar Training Program offered by the RDA) and going to Pandora. We worked hard through mid-terms and papers, sweating over GREs and letters of recommendation.

We ended up going to different grad schools, I went to Berkley, she to Brown. We kept in touch for a while. But we were so busy; it turned into a few random e-mails, a phone call every so often. Amanda graduated from grad school a year before I did; she got her Master's and was immediately accepted into the ATP. I followed in the year afterward but we still didn't see each other much even though now we lived in the same city again. I kept thinking that I had blown my chance and I would always regret it.

Then one day out of the blue I got a phone call. Amanda wanted to see me. Maybe all hope wasn't lost. I met her on a cold March day in a coffee shop in Seattle where you could look out the window and see the black ocean roiling in the rain.

The people sitting around me must have thought I was nuts because every time the door opened and the bell jingled, I turned, hoping it was her. I must have turned around to look half a dozen times, each time, though, I was disappointed. It was close to the time we'd decided on…maybe she was held up, maybe she missed the turn and-

Amanda walked through the door, the same but different too. She may have been a little older, but was just as beautiful as I remembered, still had those glasses and all that dark hair framing her face. I was done for.

"Hey, Biology," She smiled as she sat down across from me.

"Hey Ecology." I smiled right back. "So, what's up?"

We talked about our ATP training, grad school, re-living undergrad stories. I told her about Tom and how brilliant he was. She was excited to meet him eventually.

Amanda didn't look at me when the topic of Pandora itself came up. Someone who didn't know her the way I did would assume she was scared. Not Amanda…there was something else.

"What? Just spit it out." I insisted. "I know you're keeping something from me."

"I…"her eyes caught mine and she smiled slyly. "How do you always know?"

I shrugged. "It's a gift. Spill."

"I'm going to Pandora!"

That really wasn't what I was expecting but… "Wow. I thought you had a few more years to go."

She nodded. "Yeah me too, but they put me on the fast track. They don't have any ecologists and Dr. Augustine's offered to make me on."

"When are you leaving?" I wondered.

"Next week." She grinned hugely

We talked for a while longer but she had to go, cancel her lease or walk the dog or something I don't really remember what it was exactly. It wasn't important.

When she got up to leave, she stopped beside me. I was just about to ask her what was wrong when Amanda half turned, like she'd forgotten something. She leaned down and looked me straight in the eye before she kissed me on the cheek. "Meet me on Pandora," Amanda whispered like a promise and walked out of my life again.

I'd never been much of a fan of all the new music that was constantly being churned out; I liked the old stuff, stuff from the 20th and 21st centuries. Back when music was good. It was only fitting to hear that old song playing softly in the background, the one that talks about saying goodbye and how you die a little inside, as Amanda vanished from sight.

Tom always made fun of me for never making a move. He said he wanted to meet her for himself, but he never got that chance. It was true, though; I should have done something but she was gone, light years away. And there was a chance that I wouldn't ever get the chance to say what I wanted to. Some nights, when I couldn't sleep, I wondered what might have happened if I'd stopped her in that coffee shop, if I had told her the moment I knew all the way back in freshman year. Would it have changed everything? Anything?

I may not have believed in fate, but that's the funny thing about it, I guess. It sneaks up on you when you least expect it to find you. I got my chance though, to say the words I'd been waiting for almost ten years to say when I too got to Pandora a few years later.

I tried to focus on what Dr. Augustine was saying to Jake, saying that she didn't need him….something about Parker and then….

Amanda was there, behind Dr. Augustine, behind Dr. Patel at her own desk, her head in her hand as she focused only on the work before her. She had a lab coat, starchy white and professional but she'd let her long hair flow down her back. She bit the end of her pen and furrowed her eye brows. There we were, both of us, living the dreams we'd woven so many years ago.

I snapped back to the present moment when Dr. Augustine growled that she was going to talk to corporate and stormed off. Dr. Patel sighed as if it were a daily occurrence. He told Jake to use big words tomorrow.

"Amanda? David?!" He called. A man I assumed to be David appeared next to Dr. Patel. "Amanda!"

"What?!" Amanda called back, clearly losing her trail of thought. She hated that. She didn't even look up from her work.

"I need you to come show the new guys around!"

"Can't you get someone else…?" She stopped then, as she turned. The displeasure melted away and she stood.

I walked over, feeling ten feet tall. I hadn't seen her in God knows exactly how long but still I couldn't help but feel like that college freshman again…

"I can't believe you're here," she grinned as she looped her arms around me. I had to lean down and she had to stand on her tiptoes. I didn't fall, wasn't pushed out of an airplane, but I knew, like I had all those years ago, this was where I needed to be. Right here. On Pandora. With Amanda.

"My God…" She cupped her hands around her mouth in shock when she let go. "I'm sorry I would have said 'hi' earlier, I just totally forgot what day it was."

"You knew I was coming?"

She nodded. "Yeah I saw you and Tom were both coming…." She looked around, curiously. "Where is he? I want to meet him…" She glanced at Jake in his wheel chair, who was being shown around by David at the other side of the lab, and then looked questioningly up at me.

"That's Tom's twin, Jake. He's an ex-marine. Bullet severed his spinal cord." I replied quietly as we sat at her desk.

"I'm confused. Where's Tom?"

"He's dead…" It was the first time I'd said it out loud. It only made sense that Amanda was the one who heard it, too. "He got shot a week before we shipped out."

"Oh…Norm," she sighed and put her hand on mine. "I'm sorry. I know you two were friends. "

I nodded, focusing only on the warmth of her hand, the way it curved around mine. "It happened five years ago…Tom's been gone for five years. It feels like a week."

Amanda nodded. "Yeah, the time thing threw me off for the while too."

I didn't want to think about Tom anymore. "Just imagine when you go back." God was I stupid. I'd only been here for three hours and I was already talking about going home.

Amanda gave me that Amanda look, the same one that I saw that first day we met. "Can I tell you a secret?"

I smiled. Just like old times. "'Course."

"I don't want to go back. There's too much to see…" She pulled out chart after chart, showing me her findings; food webs, energy transference chains and sketches, and the first few pages of the book she was hoping to finish: "The Pandorian Ecology: A study by Amanda Fuller". "You've got to help me with this, Biology." She'd slipped back into our nicknames as if we were studying in the Yale library all those years ago.

"Of course," I promised as I fished a photo of a particularly nasty looking thanator out of the pile.

"David almost lost his tail for that," Amanda noted, coolly. "Gorgeous isn't it?"

I glanced up at her. "This…?" I wouldn't have said it was beautiful, per say, amazing, incredible and…scary were the words I was thinking of.

Amanda snatched the photo back, glaring at me from under her eyelashes. "I think it's beautiful."

"If you call six legs beautiful," I tried to grab it back.

"Yeah, well when you love something, it changes your perspective, doesn't it?" She insisted as we played keep way.

"I guess…" Did she know? She had to know…

"Oh come on, Bio. Don't tell me that you've never been so in love with someone that everything about them is beautiful to you!" She laughed; her eyes crinkling at the edges.

"Only once," I promised. And it was true.

"See," she put her hands on her hip. "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder."

"This, though," I grabbed at her motley collection of pens all with the caps chewed and bitten into a square. Classic Amanda. "This is not beautiful. I can't believe you still do this." I held one out to her. I may have ragged on her for it, but I thought it was adorable. Just like she said.

"No one steals them," she justified. "And pens are practically a currency here."

"Don't you remember how that pen exploded in Shepard's lecture? And you had blue all over you for weeks."

Amanda clapped her hand over her eyes, her cheeks flushing. "I can't believe you went there!" She punched me in the arm.

I laughed. "And then we went to the campus hospital because you were sure you'd die of ink poisoning."

She grinned "And we sat there for four hours, didn't we?"

I nodded. "We started playing connect the dots with the ink spatters to pass the time."

Amanda laughed. "They all though we were crazy."

"We were," I insisted.

She took the pen and her hair up into a messy bunch on the top of her head and stuck the pen in. A few un-tangled pieces fell and framed her sharp eyes concealed in her glasses. She looked at me, as if she could read all my thoughts. "I'm glad you're here. Just like we always said…"

And just like that, I was a college freshman again. She was beautiful and there wasn't a God-damned thing I could do to stop everything from rushing back.

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_So what did you guys think? I had a harder time channeling Norm's voice. At first it was too poetic, then it was too cynical (I actually got a few really good lines out but they seemed more like Jake), but I feel like this is more him. _

_Anyway, I'd love to hear!!! Happy Reading!_


	2. Keeping the Faith

Sorry about the late update guys, school has really been on my back lately and it doesn't leave much time for writing. That and this chapter was sort of hard to write, well it was and it wasn't.

This chapter deals mainly with faith... kind of a touchy subject but just know that I'm not trying to convert people,nor am I smacking down religion or christianity...this is just Norm thinking out loud about faith. and what it means. anyway, i'm off my soapbox now.

the only character I claim is Amanda. She's all mine!!! Everything else belongs to James Cameron.

oh and someone asked about the song I referenced in the last chapter, It's Ella Fitzgerald's "Ev'ry Time we say Goodbye"

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****"To love another person is to see the face of God."~ Victor Hugo.**

**I'm all for believing if you can reveal/Your true colors within/I know your blanket your mind, So much that I'm blind./But I see you painted your soul into your guard…" ~ Missy Higgins "I'm all for believing"**

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I realized in the months since I arrived on Pandora, you can get used to just about anything. Sleeping in tiny bunks with the same sterile white walls, eating things that barely registered as food, spending half your days in a ten foot tall, blue humanoid body that wasn't yours. Well, it was and it wasn't…and…yeah, pretty much anything.

And when we moved up to site 26, the cramped quarters became the norm (ha, no pun intended). Not that the bunks at Hell's Gate were spacious and luxurious, but at least you got a room to yourself. Site 26 was basically a laboratory with some bunks attached to the walls with a small dining room set off to one side. We were constantly in each other's faces and therefore business.

I got used to Jake's wheelchair; its width and depth, how long it would take for a bruise to appear after he decided he was sick of your teasing and would run into your shin. I got used to Trudy's constant cursing, especially when she was mad enough, she'd invent brand new ones that we would all start using. That and her crazy ability to practically smell a lie off someone, so playing "Bullshit" with her was no fun at all. I got used to Grace before she'd had her morning cigarette and coffee, even though she told us she was trying to quit.

And on mornings like that one, when Amanda was expected any moment, I got used to Grace and Jake's constant bickering. It wasn't mean or nasty, just the constant arguing to two people who were too much alike in too close of quarters.

Grace fixed Jake with a harsh glare. "Don't make me regret this decision, Marine. Or I swear to Eywa, I will kick your paraplegic ass all the way back to Earth!"

"Ouch," Jake put his hand over his heart in mock hurt. "Don't spare my feelings or anything."

Grace rolled her eyes. "Shut up, Marine. Let's get back to Hometree." And she started to calibrate her link just as Jake did his own. "You'll be okay with Amanda?" Grace asked me.

"Yeah, I'll be fine." I promised from the lab table.

Grace glanced at her watch and climbed in, Jake had already linked. "Tell her, I'll be back for dinner."

I saluted her. "Will do!"

She glanced around to see Trudy's Samson touchdown. "If Amanda asks, I'm going through a pack a week, wait…" she counted on her fingers. "No… a pack every two weeks."

I grinned. "You sure that's right?"

"Just do it Spellman!" Just as Grace linked with her Avatar, I heard the airlock slide open. "Hey Biology, long time no see." Amanda appeared; a back pack slug over one shoulder, her long braid over the other.

"Hey," I replied. "Where's Trudy?"

Amanda pointed in the direction of a sudden loud stream of curses and the clang of what sounded like a wrench hitting the side of the barracks. "She said something wasn't right."

"She's a little obsessive about that thing," I laughed as Amanda set her bag down on the table in front of the window.

"Wow…" she breathed, taking in the scenery. The sunlight streamed in, hitting her hair and creating a halo around her head; it cast the same gold light on her skin, making her freckles more pronounced on her cheeks. "This is view is…amazing. You're so lucky to be able to work up here." She turned back to me, half her face in shadow as she moved.

I grinned. "I am…" But I wasn't really thinking about the scenery.

"Way to rub it in," she growled as she started pulling papers out of her bag; charts, notes, results from experiments that Max had sent with her. He was afraid that the files would get corrupted if he sent them over the network, something to do with the flux. That and Grace didn't trust the network's security. "You can be your ass that Quatrich is just waiting for an excuse for go in guns blazing." Grace told us a few days after we'd gotten to Site 26. "That man's an fucking psycho…"

If he was, Amanda hadn't noticed; she talked about this and that, goings on at Hell's Gate Lab. We laughed and joked as if nothing had changed, that I hadn't seen her in a month. Time never had been a problem for us. We'd always be able to pick up just where we left off; no awkward re-adjustment time at all.

I'd developed a sort of immunity when we were at Hell's Gate. I saw her every day and it lessened the effects she had on me a little. It made working near her a little easier, or even, possible. But I hadn't seen her in about a month or so and I was definitely feeling the effects.

We worked steadily through the afternoon; comparing notes and filing away experiment reports for Grace when she came out of link later. I read over the pages of her book that had grown from about fifty to nearly a hundred and fifty. It was good, rough in spots, but good.

"This is not going to fly," I pointed to a passage she included about Eywa, the meanings, a few Na'vi beliefs and such. But she'd interwoven the beliefs as the source for the food webs and energy webs.

"I know it's not traditional science but…Pandora kinda changes everything." She replied, pushing a strand of hair out of her face.

"They won't like it," I laid out for her. "No matter what school's offered to publish you. They won't touch it."

Amanda huffed out a deep breath. "Well I can't ignore a huge part of my study…"

"They'll want proof." I replied. "Something that you can prove over and over again."

"But it's here." She pointed to the pages laid out before us. "It's right here."

"But you're mixing religion with science," I argued. "That's a no-no."

"I am not! Eywa is more than just a 'god'!" Amanda crossed her arms over her chest in frustration. She narrowed her eyes at me. "You believe in Eywa, don't you?"

"I don't see what that has to do with anything." To be honest, though, I'd never really thought that much about it. Sure, I knew who she was, what she meant to the Na'vi. And then it was my happy task of explaining her to Jake.

As I crammed as much of the Na'vi language into his head, kept wondering if there was an Eywa, I couldn't understand why she had chosen, of all people, Jake. He hadn't even wanted to come to Pandora; he hadn't worked his whole life for it. He came because he was lucky enough to share the exact same genome as Tom and _he_ gets chosen by Eywa, by the Na'vi.

Of course I was jealous. Because he was throwing it back in our faces all the time. That is until we came up to Site 26. Since then, he'd changed. He'd become more like Tom. Granted, it's been taking him almost twice as long to learn the language when he had two teachers but still….Now, it'd be hard to imagine this place without him.

"I don't know," I admitted, running my hand over my face.

Amanda gestured out to the view before us. "How you could you not know? Have you seen this place? Grace talks all the time about the connection between the trees. How they can transfer information like that." She snapped her fingers. "There's something affecting everything…An energy source almost."

I pointed up. "Alpha Centuri?"

"No!" She batted my hand down. "No, I mean like an entity but it can move from the plants, to the trees, to the animals, to the Na'vi; an energy with a consciousness…a worldwide soul. An actual, tangible web."

I just looked at her, noting a small delicate silver cross at her neck. I guessed that what Grace had said was true: "Pandora changes you, often in ways you would never expect."

"When did you start believing all this?"

"What?" She smiled a small smile. "I can't be spiritual and scientific at the same time?"

"No, it's just that…this never seemed to cross your mind before and now…" I gestured to the pile of papers before us. "You're wearing a cross and talking about Eywa…I just…"

Amanda sat back and looked down at the cross at her neck. She picked it up and let it rest in her palm. "My mom got this for me before I left. She said: 'So you'll be safe.'" Amanda let it fall. " 'So you'll remember when you're so far away.' I don't…I don't know if I believe in this God…but I have faith in people."

"You believe…you of all people have faith in humanity? You've seen what we've done, who many species we've killed." I shouldn't have been surprised, it was Amanda after all. "After how we killed our own planet, our own people?"

She frowned. "So, we screwed some things up, sure. Who hasn't? But…that's the thing, we can change, we can learn. We're capable of good things too."

"Name one," I challenged.

Amanda cocked her head to one side. "We can love. If we can feel love for another being then…" she shook her head in disbelief. "Then, there isn't anything we can't do."

I marveled at her, I honestly didn't know where this unshakable faith came from. Maybe because she'd been gone from Earth for six years longer than I had and had forgotten turning on the news every night to hear about how we destroyed rain forest after rain forest, and how we racked up the body count, from whatever war it was, by the thousands. She'd forgotten how the sky would turn black for days at a time and you had to wear an exo-pack just to take the trash out. She'd forgotten how bad things had gotten. She had to…

She frowned. "You really don't have faith at all? In anything?"

I looked around at the familiar lab. "I have faith in things you can see, touch, and count. If it can be proven again and again, then I know it'll work."

It was her turn to shake her head. "You don't believe that…" She said it as if she were reading in my head. "That's

"What if I do?" I replied.

Amanda looked at me in the way that only Amanda could, like she was x-raying my soul. "I don't believe you."

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"Come on, Biology!" Amanda called, her Avatar's blue skin shone lavender in the light of the other moons and stars. She'd brought it with her just in case the opportunity had presented itself. She convinced Grace that she and I needed to go for a walk in the night; she had something to show me (Trudy and Jake, of course, had their minds in the gutter and I wouldn't dare repeat what they said).

She'd braided her dark hair into five or six braids almost like dreadlocks fastened with beads and colored ribbon. Her eyes were still Amanda's, still familiar. Even her Avatar's lips quirked upward when she wasn't smiling and the freckle pattern on her cheeks was the same. But with the fraying ends of the shorts and roughly hewn tank top made her look more…feral…dangerous even.

"I'm coming! Wait, where are you going?" I called back as I locked the barracks behind me. There weren't many thanators up here but viper wolves were not a fun surprise either.

I finally caught up with her and we ran. There's nothing like running in an Avatar body. You can go for miles, hell; you could probably go for weeks without stopping or looking back. There was only boundless strength as we chased each other through the underbrush. She was always just out of reach, just behind that tree or leaping over a fallen log. Our laughter echoed loudly as we ran, like we were the only two beings in the entire universe.

I lost her for a few minutes and then found her, standing on the edge of a small cliff, probably about six meters above a calm pooling section of the river that ran down the side of the mountain.

"What are you doing?" I asked, stepping up behind her.

She turned, hand on her hip, tail swinging back and forth. "What do you think?"

"You don't know what's down there!"

She shrugged. "I'm taking a leap of faith, then." She held out her hand. "Jump with me."

I could have said no. I didn't want to risk this body. But I didn't. I couldn't, not with her skin turning lavender in the night lights, and her eyes so foreign, but still Amanda's.

I took her hand, weaving our fingers together.

"Ready?" She murmured, even though we were the only two around.

"Ready."

"One.." She smiled at me. "Two…" she turned back to the river. "Three!"

We flew and hit the water at the same time. As we did, there was a sudden light from the riverbed and when we came up for air, we glanced down again. Beneath us, the bottom of the river was bright with twisting plant leaves that glowed brightly in the night; giant iridescent sunflowers, only these were at least six feet in diameter.

"Wow…plants that grow under the water?" Amanda gasped. "We don't have any near Hell's Gate."

"You go out at night?" I wondered.

She nodded, tucking a loose wet braid over her huge ear. "Sometimes, we bribe a few of the security guards to look the other way… come on, I want to see it." She gulped in a huge breath and disappeared beneath the surface. I followed, as always. We swam down to the bottom and Amanda ran her fingers over the deeply embedded fronds that changed color and luminosity as she moved from one to another.

When we couldn't hold our breaths any longer, we came back up. She grinned. "This place never ceases to amaze me."

We swam for a while, lazily moving across the water, splashing. I got dunked a few times but Amanda didn't escape unscathed either. We were like un-supervised children; almost hedonistic in our escape from the lab, the responsibilities. Everything.

Later, when we were totally exhausted from swimming, we sat on the river's edge, our feet still resting in the water. "I bet," Amanda said suddenly. "You can name me any plant I point to."

I shrugged. "I'm that big of a nerd, so yeah."

"You know how much sunlight they need, how much water, what their scientific name is?"

This time I nodded. "Yeah."

"But…" She bit her lower lip and then looked up. "Do you ever just look around? See how it all fits together?"

"You're the Ecologist here," I pointed to her.

"Yeah, I know but…" She gestured to the quiet night that settled on us. "Look around and tell me you don't believe…"

So, I did. The trees seemed to hum in rhythm to the ebb and flow of the wavelets of the river, the bank was still warm from the day before and the sweet perfume of earth, clear water and calm air laid heavily on us. Above us Polyphemus spun on, its giant eye watching us as it passed. But the sky was clear and the stars bright. I couldn't remember the last time I'd seen stars from Earth, there were too many clouds, too much smoke in the atmosphere.

A slight wind picked up, northerly I think and it whistled through the trees, the floating mountains. And underneath the humming and the whistling, I could have sworn there was a voice, a wordless singing. But it only made itself known to me if I didn't think too hard about hearing. The song didn't grow any louder but didn't fade with the wind when it died down. Instead the more I didn't think about it, the more….pronounced it became.

I turned back to Amanda. "Do you hear that?" I asked her.

She closed her eyes and her ears perked; once, twice…When she opened her eyes again, she smiled. "Yeah…I do. I think it's Eywa."

In my head, Tom was telling me that this was it. The chance had come again. I could say the things I'd wanted to say for so long. The timing was perfect, and… Come on, you can do it…you can. I opened my mouth-

"What if we had an Eywa once?" Amanda went on, almost sadly.

"What?" I got snapped back to the present moment.

She turned to me. "What if we had an Eywa once…? What if… she were God…" she looped her arms around her knees. "…and we killed her? She tried to stop us but we didn't listen, couldn't see it before it was too late."

"There's not much we can do now." I replied quietly.

Amanda frowned. "No, I guess not."

* * *

Later, after we returned to Site 26 base and returned our Avatars to their proper places, Amanda headed to bed. She and Trudy had to leave early the next morning for Hell's Gate. She chose the bunk on the other side of the room where I sat with Trudy, head phones in as she slept.

"How long have you loved her?" Trudy flicked her cigarette down into Grace's ash tray. She glanced over her shoulder to listen for Grace. Nothing.

"I didn't know you smoked…" I replied, glancing around to be sure that Amanda was still asleep. As if in reply, she rolled over and let out a quiet sigh.

She rolled her eyes. "I used to. I quit. But every once in a while…" She took a drag and exhaled smoke. "It's kinda nice. You gonna answer my question?" She wondered.

I thought seriously about lying and saw the options that presented me with; Trudy beating my ass to get the real answer or my just spelling it out for her. I chose the second one. It was easier. "Ten years at least. Since undergrad."

Trudy didn't laugh like I thought she would. She didn't even flinch: her eyes didn't get big or seem to react in any way. "Yep…" she put the cigarette out. "I thought as much. You got that 'forever' kinda vibe." She shook her head with a small smile. "You gonna do anything about it?"

I looked down at my hands. "I…I tried…I almost told her and then…Besides," I shrugged. "She wouldn't want me. She could have anyone…"

"Oh God, Spellman don't feed me that pity crap." Trudy groaned. "She's not that pretty and you're just stupid is all."

I bristled at that. "What do you mean; she's not that pretty?"

Trudy shrugged. "She's cute, I guess. But she isn't like a model or anything. Besides she's just as big of a nerd as you are."

This was something I had considered. But it was true, Amanda was a nerd…I was a nerd…

Trudy looked me. "In my experience, it's better to say something because you don't know when time's gonna run out."

* * *

okay funny story; I planned for Norm to have this little chat with Jake...and then Trudy showed up instead. But I rather like how it turned out, what do you guys think?

As always, I love feedback!!!


	3. Bottom of the Box

**Awww last chapter.....sad.... anyway, so this is my take on how Norm got from the point where he got ejected from his Avatar body and then to Hell's Gate**

**And I know the song i've referenced is from the Dear John trailer but it's a legit song and in a way inspired this whole fic!**

**Amanda is the only character I claim, everything else belongs to James Cameron**

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* * *

****"****Hope is faith holding out its hand in the dark.****"~George Iles**

"**Your words in my memory/Are like music to me/I'm miles from where you are,/I lay down on the cold ground/I, I pray that something picks me up/And sets me down in your warm arms…"~ Snow Patrol featuring Martha Wainwright "Set Fire to the Third Bar"**

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* * *

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The thought just kept coming back as I climbed down the side of the mountain: Get to Amanda. Find Amanda. It was logical because I cared about her and wanted to know that she was all right, but it was also as if someone were telling me to find her, whispering it in my ear. It was logical, I told myself as I dropped down from a craggily peak. It was only logical I wanted to see her soon….Instantly, I could see her face pinched in worry, alight with joy and everything in between.

Jake, Trudy, Max and I agreed that if things were to go south, we'd head down to the Tree of Souls below us and wait for word. But things had gone quiet. The skies, which had been full of Ikran and Na'vi warrior cries, had fallen eerily silent. The forest around us didn't crash with AMP suits and the ring of bullets. The radio I grabbed before I'd left the station squawked a few times and I turned it down just a little. It was sort of screwy; I could hear messages but couldn't send any out. But even these few garbled messages had disappeared too.

Still I couldn't think of anything but Amanda…couldn't see anything but her face in my head… The last time I'd seen her was before all hell had broken loose. Max had called us telling us that Quatrich was on the rampage and I saw her in the background. She'd seemed pale and tired; there were bags under her eyes. And I wanted to call out to her but then the moment passed and she moved away. I hadn't seen her since.

I'd always felt that she was where I needed to be. No matter where that might be, but this…insane need to be next to her was something entirely different and I had no logic to back it up or to explain what in the hell was going on. It was more than just chemistry between brains, more than just us just being in the right place at the right time. It was more than all that, but at the same time it was incredibly simple, using only four letters of the English language.

_Eywa…_I said in my head. _Eywa, if you're listening… _I rested for a moment and sank to my knees on a small cliff, only a hundred feet or so to go. _Help me…I don't ask for help like this but if you're there…Grace if you're with her…please. There's a reason for all this, or at least I hope there is. Help me get back to her._ Amanda would have been proud, I realized, or shocked. One of the two, maybe both…probably both. I could see the look that would be on her face if she were with me; she'd have that half smile that said: "I told ya so!" and she'd push a strand of her dark hair back behind her ear and go on about her business.

As I got closer to the ground, I found a few of the Na'vi sentries that Jake set up earlier. They greeted me by name, but were weary at the same time. Then suddenly there was a huge explosion above us. Several of the Na'vi below swore loudly in their language as what looked like a fire ball fell from the sky landing a ways from the Tree. Mo'at, watched with glazed eyes but then looked up at me. The sentries also looked to me as well, confused. So, I tried to get someone on the radio. "Jake? Jake, do you copy?" No answer. "Trudy? Trudy? Do you copy?" There was only static.

"Well?" one of them prodded in Na'vi. "Where is Toruk Makto?"

I shrugged. "I don't know." And so the waiting began. There were squawks every so often, but mainly it was just static. The sun would be coming down soon and I needed to get back to Hell's Gate.

There was the sudden sound of a Samson touching down. The Na'vi around me tensed, picking up their bows until we could see Neytiri half hanging out of the open belly as it settled just fifty feet from us. Beside her sat Jake and both of our Avatars. But that wasn't even the best part.

Eywa…Grace, whoever it was, had been listening because the best part leapt out faster than Neytiri could and ran at me at full speed as soon as (to my surprise) Max touched down. When Amanda actually hit me, I stumbled back a few steps. Her warm arms encircled me and she said over and over: "I thought you were dead…. I thought you were dead…." The exo-pack made her voice break and hiss an odd spots but it was just as welcome.

"I'm fine," I assured her, wrapping her arms around her too. She yanked me closer still. And I wished we didn't have these stupid exo-packs on, and then I could- "Why is Max flying…? Where's Trudy?"

Amanda shook her head. "We saw her Samson in pieces…" She whispered. "She couldn't have…" She didn't have to finish, I just held her tighter. My world, as it always had, shrank down to this simple contact.

"Where the hell were you man?" Jake gripped from the Samson. "We thought Quatrich had gotten to you."

Amanda tightened her grip a little at the mention of his name. She had to of know then. Max had told her. Grace, Trudy…almost me, apparently.

"I'm fine," I said again, this time to Jake. "Are you okay?" I lifted her chin so I could see for myself. Except for dirt and a few scrapes she was fine too.

Neytiri, meanwhile, hissed at the Samson as a few of the others got Jake's Avatar out. "I do not like metal ikran." She tapped it suspiciously with her bow.

Jake smiled, their hands; her huge blue one and his tiny pale one, were connected as if nothing were different. "I'll be back soon, I promise."

Neytiri sighed impatiently. "Will you leave as soon as Nor'm and his Aman'd get in the metal ikran?"

"She's not-" I started at the same time Amanda returned to herself and stammered "I'm not-" She blushed.

Neytiri regarded us with a confused look. "They are mates, are they not?" She asked Jake.

Awkward… but I didn't think Amanda heard as Max started the Samson again.

Jake turned to his mate. "They just can't See it."

Neytiri rolled her eyes and muttered something about "stupid sky people" in Na'vi but I didn't catch it all. She laid her hand alongside his cheek for a moment and then had to back away as the Samson took off.

As soon as we were airborne, Jake tilted his head back and closed his eyes. I tried to remember the last time either of us had slept and couldn't…

I noticed my Avatar's shoulder for the first time and realized just how nasty the hit really was. There was a hole that had gone almost all the way through the shoulder. But someone had torn a shirt or something to bind it and covered the rest of the body with a blanket. I vaguely remembered the water we'd run through but the shock of the abrupt separation had made things fuzzy. But that same shoulder on me ached as if someone had taken a hammer to it. "Muscle memory" Grace would have said. "It may not be the body you use all the time, but your neural system thinks it is."

But I didn't want to think about Grace; it'd be a good hour or so back to Hell's Gate and just as I was about to follow Jake's example, I felt Amanda shaking beside me.

Whether it was from all the bad news, horrible sights or all the adrenaline leaving her system, I didn't know. If she were crying she wouldn't have wanted me to see it. But I had to do something, so, I grabbed her hand, slipped it into the crook of my elbow and covered it with my other hand.

Amanda didn't say anything. She only turned into me, and rested her head against my shoulder without looking at me. I laid my head on top of hers, smiling to myself. I glanced around to Jake, who'd opened his eyes for a moment. He was smiling at us as well.

* * *

Hell's Gate came up faster as we slept. As soon as we landed, there were other Avatar drivers there waiting. Max must have radioed in to let them know. They took mine away before we could do or say anything. It was sort of sad to see that body totally helpless and covered in blood and disappearing from us. It was me, and at the same time it wasn't….it could have been I suppose. I glanced down to see Amanda following its progress too, the same haunted look there that must have been in my face, until they all disappeared from sight. Still, she didn't look at me.

Amanda remained silent, though, as we walked through the air lock. Jake wheeled ahead, he and Max talking about survivors or something. They tried to get me involved but I was so exhausted, I couldn't follow.

"You should get some sleep," Max clapped me on the back. "Your old room is empty," he told me. "And Amanda…seriously, everything will be fine if you if you need to sleep too."

Amanda only nodded silently.

Max pulled me aside. "I think she's in shock, first Grace, then we found out about Trudy, your Avatar's body…all the blood." I cringed, imagining the carnage that Amanda had walked through to find the body, probably just in the nick of time. "We got Jake on the radio then, he was up at the Tree of Souls base and that Quatrich was dead. So, we flew up there, looking for your human body the whole time. Nothing. Then we saw all the damage Quatrich did. The ruined link." Max took off his glasses and ran a hand down his face. "She freaked out. Started screaming…get her to sleep, please?"

I promised I would and went back to her. She took my hand and let me lead her to her room. When we got there, she put her combination into the lock quietly and cracked the door open.

"Hey…Amanda…" I tapped her shoulder.

Without saying anything, she wrapped her arms around me again. She was coming back to me by degrees. This time it was calmer, gentler. Now, there wasn't this all consuming fear that that had gripped her the last time. Now, it was more of a comfort…There were tears she needed to cry, I could feel them, but she would do so when she was alone.

"Amanda…"I tried again.

"I'm sorry," She pushed herself away and looked up at me for the first time, and I hated to see the tears beading in her eyes. "I just…I…." She trailed off when I pulled her back, pressing my palms to her cheeks and resting my forehead against hers. Amanda swallowed audibly. Her hands fell on my wrists, keeping them there. Each movement seemed to take a thousand years and each was a separate, isolated but at the same time, fluid.

It was enough, just as it had been all those years ago, hearing her breathe, knowing she was alive….and yet…After everything, I'd seen that day, all the chances I'd let pass me by, the way her eyes flicked over me, the next thing I did was the scariest, hardest and, at the same time, the easiest thing I ever did. I Jake said once that sometimes your whole life boils down to one insane moment. Mine did. Maybe hers did too. So, I did what I should have years ago; I kissed her, without worrying or thinking about it. I just did.

She didn't pull back or push me away. She didn't turn; in fact, she tightened her hold on me and pulled me closer, her fingers knotting in my shirt and her dark hair falling loose around her face. She pressed her body into mine; a wonderful tension, a promise of things to come and she tilted her head just enough as if she couldn't help herself.

When we finally broke apart, we looked at each other; eyes wide as if we couldn't believe such a thing had occurred.

"How long have you been waiting to do that?" She whispered; her voice thick with unshed tears but also pleasant surprise. Funny how both of them were there at the same time.

I shrugged, trying to make it seem less than of a big deal than it was. "About ten years."

She smiled fully, her eyes sparkling mischievously as she slid her hands up and cupped them around the back of my neck. "Why didn't you do that earlier?"

"I didn't…you and I…we're friends-"

But she didn't let me finish. She pressed her thumb over my lower lip. "Just shush," Amanda ordered. "Next time, don't wait so long…"

I nodded, moving her hand out of the way and kissed her again. Amanda smiled briefly against my mouth before she returned the kiss. But soon, the corners of her mouth started to tremble. She needed to cry and be alone to absorb all this; she'd never been one to let anyone see her cry, even me.

She pulled back this time, settling back down but her hands still on my face. Amanda smiled up at me, slightly teary eyed and whispered the combination to her room in my ear. She told me to come back in an hour; she needed it to pull herself together. I promised her I'd be back.

Amanda had her hand pressed to her mouth, her back to the door, when I came in.

"Hey…" I called as softly as I could.

She whipped her head around, her long braid flying back over her shoulder as she turned. Her eyes were puffy and swollen from the crying she'd done but I pretended not to notice. "Oh…" she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. "Hi…come in."

I shut the door and sat just behind her, looking over her shoulder. In her slightly shaking hand was a photo of her and Grace probably long before I'd come here. They were sitting on top of a desk, both had their lab coats on, and neither were looking at the camera. Grace had her trademark cigarette in her fingers and Amanda a pen sticking out of the mass of her curly hair. Both were glancing to the left, to something just out of frame and they were laughing.

"I miss her," She whispered and set it down next to her glasses on the nightstand. With a small sigh, she turned to me, but the lines of her shoulders were weary. Everything about her seemed beaten and sad, probably mirroring how I looked. "I feel like I could sleep for a century and it wouldn't even be close to enough."

"Maybe a millennium?" I wondered out loud.

"I don't know," she shrugged her shoulders. "I just don't know anymore."

"Don't…" I started. "Don't be sad….I hate it when you're sad."

Amanda grinned a little. "Is that why you kissed me? So I wouldn't be sad?"

Now it was full confession time. There was no way around it now; it needed to be out in the open, especially since she returned the kiss and everything. "Sort of…"

"Have you really liked me for ten years?" She wondered.

I shook my head. "No, I've loved you for ten years."

She smiled even wider. "Well, I've loved you for seven."

Wait…what? "Really?" No, she…couldn't have.

As always, Amanda read my thoughts. "I sort of figured it out senior year," She threaded her hand into mine, lifting them up and inspecting them in the light. "But our lives were going in separate directions, different grad schools and all…and it would have been unfair to you and to me…"

It was my turn to smile. "And here we are."

She leaned forward and kissed me this time. "Here we are." She agreed, letting everything in the past be past. "Stay?" She whispered. "I'll have nightmares, I know I will. I need to know that you're okay."

In response, I laid back as she turned off her bedside lamp. "I was hoping you'd ask me to stay. For some reason your bed is way comfier than mine."

"Maybe because I'm in it?" She laughed and curled up next to me, one arm across my chest and I wrapped one arm around her shoulders. I held her so close it was as if I had two hearts; hers and mine.

"Maybe," I replied, running my hand up to her neck, she relaxed even more into me. Strange, she didn't have her necklace on… "Did you lose your necklace?" I asked her.

"Hmm? No, I took it off. It didn't seem…appropriate anymore." She tucked her cheek into my shoulder.

"Why not?"

"Because," She sat up a little to look at me, but I could barely make out her outline in the darkness. "After everything I saw today, I can't…I understand why you don't have faith in humanity anymore."

"What if I told you…" I pulled her down again. "That I prayed to Eywa today?"

"What?!" was her shocked whisper. "Why?"

"I asked Eywa to let me get back to you."

Amanda didn't say anything for a full minute.

"What else is left?" I asked with a grin that she couldn't see. "At the bottom of Pandora's box?"

"Just hope."

* * *

**Two weeks later:**

No matter how many times I turned off the alarm it just wouldn't stop, I just wanted to sleep…And then I opened my eyes to the complete darkness of Amanda's room, and realized it wasn't the alarm, but Amanda's phone. I reached for it but Amanda's little hand shot out from under the covers and grabbed it.

"What?" She groaned. "Fuck, Max, it's our fucking day off! Call us in three hours!" she clicked it off and set it back on her bedside table next to her glasses.

"What did he want?" I asked, wrapping my arm around her again. Normally, Amanda was a happy person, but not if you woke her out of a dead sleep. In fact, most mornings for the past two weeks, she was up and in link, helping the injured Na'vi under David's direction, the local Na'vi anatomy expert. That or furiously at work on the book in the lab. I told she could work in her own room, or mine, but she said she didn't want to wake me (she had this tendency to talk to herself as she wrote and got pretty loud sometimes).

But she'd finished the book last week and sent it along with the rest of the company when they went back to Earth. To my surprise she'd added a little something extra to the author page: "The Pandorian Ecology by Amanda Fuller and Norm Spellman. Amanda Fuller and Norm Spellman met during their undergrad at Yale. They received Masters' Degrees in Ecology and Biology from Brown and Berkley respectively. Since then, both have traveled to Pandora and plan to stay."

The book wasn't the only thing we'd sent back, either. Amanda confessed to me that she'd gone out to the Tree of Voices site and took a few samples. To our surprise, the root system was incredibly hardy and salvageable. Amanda had gotten it to grow with almost no effort in the few days before the big battle and since then, it had flourished. So, we slipped it in with a few trusted scientists who were heading back to Earth. Maybe it would take root there and when, who knows?

"I don't know and I don't care." She muttered into her pillow.

And just as I was about to drop off to sleep again, my phone went off.

"God…" Amanda growled and buried her head under her pillow. "He never fucking sleeps! He never stops!"

I grabbed at the phone, if nothing else, stopping that obnoxious wailing. "Yeah? What's wrong?" I rolled away as Amana curled into a ball, covers tight over her shoulders.

"What the hell is wrong with her?" Max wanted to know.

"What do you want Max?" I closed my eyes. "Seriously, I'm ready to hang up the phone too."

"So sensitive…"

"It's called sleep and I'm going to turn off the phone to continue doing just that so…?"

"It's ready."

Instantly, I was awake. "Why didn't you tell me yesterday?!"

Amanda was up now too, wrapping the sheet around her. "What is it, Bio? What'd he do?"

"I wasn't sure until now. You can come and try to go into link if you want. Jake and Neytiri are here already too."

"I'll be there in five." I hung up the phone and tossed it….somewhere.

"Bio, the fuck is going on?" Amanda wanted to know.

"It's ready!" I grabbed whatever clothes were on the floor, pants and a shirt, socks too. I glanced over and saw that Amanda was reaching for clothes too. We were dressed and somewhat presentable (we weren't entirely sure if the clothes were clean or not) and down to the lab as fast as we could.

Three of the links were in use, leaving plenty for Amanda and I. Max joined us, showing the scans he'd taken this morning. Everything looked good, stable.

"Are you sure about this?" Amanda wondered, wrapping a protective hand around my wrist.

"Would I have called you on your day off if I weren't?" Max retorted.

As if on cue, Jake knocked on the window. "Come on, Norm," his voice was muffled through the glass. "We don't have all day!" He'd made the switch a few days ago and I couldn't decide who was happier: Jake or Neytiri.

"I'm going into three!" I announced and started calibrating.

"I'm going into four!" Amanda called. She looked over at me. "What? You think I'm going to let you go alone?"

The last thing I saw before I shut the lid was Amanda's smile and I carried it with me as it started up. I settled into my link….it was like coming home. There was that familiar pressure and the blinding light. And then…

"Norm?" Jake's voice was right there. "Norm can you hear me, buddy?"

"Is he dead?" Neytiri wondered.

"Bio?" Amanda's voice was there too and I tried to open my eyes all the way. They were all three just blurry dark shapes in the daylight. "Hey Biology…did it work?" Her hand was on mine and I gripped it.

"Yeah," I murmured as my vision cleared.

"Welcome to the land of the living," Jake grinned. "It's nice to have you back."

I glanced around at them. "It's nice to be back."

* * *

**Well, thanks for all the support for my little expirement guys! I hope you enjoy reading this as much as i did writing it!!!! I'll be back soon with Grace's last one-shot, and the Jake one I've been promising forever!**

**Peace, Love and Happy Reading to all!**


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